Hedy Lamarr: Google Honors The Queen Of The Onscreen Orgasm

Chances are if you are under 50, you have probably never heard of Hedy Lamarr. Yet, today Google are celebrating Lamarr’s 101st birthday by making Hedy today’s Google doodle. Those born in the internet age are probably wondering why internet giants Google are celebrating Lamarr some 15 years after her death. Lamarr was born in Germany on November 9, 1914, just after the outbreak of the First World War. Lamarr enjoyed a brief movie career in Germany before moving to Tinseltown in the late 1930s.

Hedy became one of the biggest and most controversial movie stars of her day, but it was her role in the 1933 movie Ecstasy that caused Lamarr to be steeped in controversy. Aged just 18, Lamarr filmed a scene showing a close up of her face seemingly in the throes of orgasm. Hedy’s on-screen orgasm is believed to be the first time such a scene had been seen in mainstream cinema. The movie also showed a close-up shot of Lamarr swimming and running through the woods naked. Such scenes are pretty common now, but in Hedy’s day, this was both rare and shocking.

According to the Independent, at just 19-years-old, Lamarr married one of the richest men in Austria, Friedrich Mandl, an arms dealer. Mandl was apparently so jealous and controlling that he attempted to buy up all the copies of Hedy’s movie Ecstasy in an attempt to stop people seeing Lamarr’s sex scenes. Mandl’s controlling behavior led Lamarr to escape to Paris and eventually to the U.S. after she was offered a movie contract by MGM head Louis B. Mayer.

News.Com report that Lamarr was at one time considered the “world’s most beautiful woman.” Hedy wasn’t just blessed with beauty, however, she had brains too. After quitting Hollywood, Lamarr turned her hand to invention. Believe it or not, Hedy Lamarr created some of the technology behind what we now know as Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. It seems incredible to think that 1930s film actress Lamarr was behind the technology we use every day in our smartphones over 100 years after her birth.

Love Google’s doodle honoring singer Hedy Lamar’s bday. She also invented frequency-hoppinghttps://t.co/FLEgFl13kX pic.twitter.com/RboPEoUho6

— Joel Makower (@makower) November 9, 2015

Writing on the Google Doodle homepage, Jennifer Hom explained why Google consider Lamarr such an important historical figure.

“We love highlighting the many good stories about women’s achievements in science and technology. When the story involves a 1940s Hollywood star-turned-inventor who helped develop technologies we all use with our smartphones today… well, we just have to share it with the world.”

During World War II, Lamarr was involved in the invention of a system designed to stop German submarines from jamming allied radio signals. Lamarr worked with composer George Antheil to patent the concept of “frequency hopping.” The idea being that if a signals frequency was constantly changing it could not be jammed. Sadly, the Navy did not pick up on the idea, and Lamarr wasn’t credited with its invention until the patent ran out in 1988.

Hedy Lamar's 1942 patent for a "frequency-hopping" radio system for jamming enemy radio transmissions during WWII pic.twitter.com/1mVHif8udZ

— Jaipreet Virdi (@jaivirdi) November 9, 2015

Unfortunately, Lamarr sunk into a pit of drug addiction and self-obsession, a story revealed by her son, Anthony Loder, after Lamarr’s death in January 2000. Lamarr was terrified of losing her looks and, as a result, underwent numerous surgical procedures in an attempt to look younger. Mr Loder claims that this turned her into a “Frankenstein’s Monster.”

“She had her breasts enlarged, her cheeks raised, her lips made bigger, and much, much more. She had plastic surgery thinking it could revive her looks and her career, but it backfired and distorted her beauty.”

Lamarr married and divorced six times and, towards the end of her life, became secluded and impoverished. Hedy was even arrested for shoplifting from a store in 1966. Lamarr got involved in, and lost, numerous lawsuits through the years, and as a result, she lost most of her fortune.

One thing that is never likely to be said about Hedy Lamarr is that she led a boring existence.

[Image via Hedy Lamarr.org]